Manohar Mattoo was a Kashmiri Pandit who stayed on in the Valley even after all the other Hindus had gone. He was secretly tired of and deeply hurt by the barbs from his Muslim friends who said that all Hindus in Kashmir were actually, in one way or another, agents of the Indian Occupation Forces. Manohar had participated in all the anti-India protests, and had shouted Azadi! louder than everybody else. But nothing seemed to help. At one point he had even contemplated taking up arms and joining the Hizb, but eventually he decided against it. One day an old school friend of his, Aziz Mohammed, an intelligence officer, visited him at home to tell him that he was worried for him. He said that he had seen his (Mattoo’s) surveillance file. It suggested that he be put under watch because he displayed “antinational tendencies.”
When he heard the news Mattoo beamed and felt his chest swell with pride.
“You have given me the Nobel Prize!” he told his friend.
He took Aziz Mohammed out to Café Arabica and bought him coffee and pastries worth Rs 500.
A year later he (Mattoo) was shot by an unknown gunman for being a kafir.
Q 1: Why was Mattoo shot?
(a) Because he was a Hindu
(b) Because he wanted Azadi
(c) Because he won the Nobel Prize
(d) None of the above
(e) All of the above
Q 2: Who could the unknown gunman have been?
(a) An Islamist militant who thought all kafirs should be killed
(b) An agent of the Occupation who wanted people to think that all Islamist militants thought that all kafirs should be killed
(c) Neither of the above
(d) Someone who wanted everyone to go crazy trying to figure it out
KHADIJA SAYS…
In Kashmir when we wake up and say “Good Morning” what we really mean is “Good Mourning.”
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
Begum Dil Afroze was a well-known opportunist who believed, quite literally, in changing with the times. When the Movement seemed to be on the up and up, she would set the time on her wristwatch half an hour ahead to Pakistan Standard Time. When the Occupation regained its grip she would reset it to Indian Standard Time. In the Valley the saying went, “Begum Dil Afroze’s watch isn’t really a watch, it’s a newspaper.”
Q 1: What is the moral of this story?
APRIL FOOL’S DAY 2008: Actually it’s April Fool’s night. All night the news comes in sporadically, relayed from mobile phone to mobile phone: “Encounter” in a village in Bandipora. The BSF and STF say they received specific information that there were militants—the Chief of Operations of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and some others—in a house in the village of Chithi Bandi. There was a crackdown. The encounter went on all night. Past midnight the army announced that the operation had been successful. They said that two militants had been killed. But the police said there were no bodies.
I went with P to Bandipora. We left at dawn.
From Srinagar to Bandipora the road winds through mustard fields. Wular Lake is glassy, inscrutable. Slim boats preen on it like fashion models. P tells me that recently, as part of “Operation Good Will,” the army took twenty-one children on a picnic in a navy boat. The boat overturned. All twenty-one children drowned. When the parents of the drowned children protested they were shot at. The luckier ones died.
Bandipora is “liberated,” they say. Like Sopore once was. Like Shopian still is. Bandipora is backed up against the high mountains. When we reached we found that the crackdown hadn’t ended.
The villagers said it had begun at 3:30 p.m. the previous day. People were forced out of their homes at gunpoint. They had to leave their houses open, hot tea not yet drunk, books open, homework incomplete, food on the fire, the onions frying, the chopped tomatoes waiting to be added.
There were more than a thousand soldiers, the villagers said. Some said four thousand. At night terror is magnified, the leaves in the Chinar trees must have looked like soldiers. As the crackdown wore on, and dawn broke, it was not just the occasional gunshots that tore through people, but also the softer sounds, of their cupboards being opened, their cash and jewelry being stolen, their looms being smashed. Their cattle being barbecued alive in their pens.
A big house belonging to a poet’s brother had been razed. It was a heap of rubble. No bodies had been found. The militants had escaped. Or perhaps they were never there.
But why was the army still there? Soldiers with machine guns, shovels and mortar launchers controlled the crowd.
More news:
Two young men have been picked up from a petrol pump nearby.
The crowd goes rigid.
The army has already announced that they’ve killed two militants here in Chithi Bandi. So now it has to produce bodies. The people know how real life works. Sometimes the script is written in advance.
“If the bodies of those boys are freshly burned we won’t accept the army story.”
Go India! Go Back!
People catch sight of a soldier standing in the village mosque, looking down at them. He hasn’t taken his boots off in the holy place. A howl goes up. Slowly the barrel of the gun rises and takes aim. The air shrinks and grows hard.
A shot rings out from the poet’s brother’s ex-house. It’s an announcement. The army is going to withdraw. The village road isn’t wide enough for us and them, so to make room for them we flatten ourselves against the walls of houses. The soldiers file through. Hooting pursues them like the wind whistling down the village road. You can sense the soldiers’ anger and shame. You can sense their helplessness too. That could change in a second.
All they have to do is to turn around and shoot.
All the people have to do is to lie down and die.
When the last soldier has gone, the people climb over the debris of the burnt house. The tin sheets that were once the roof are still smoldering. A scorched trunk lies open, flames still leaping out of it. What was in it that burns so beautifully?
On the small, smoky mountain of rubble, the people stand and chant:
Hum Kya Chahtey?
Azadi!
And they call for the Lashkar:
Aiwa Aiwa!
Lashkar-e-Taiba!
—
More news comes.
Mudasser Nazir has been picked up by the STF.
His father arrives. His breathing is shallow. His face is ashen. An autumn leaf in spring.
They’ve taken his boy to the camp.
“He’s not a militant. He was injured in a protest last year.”
“They’re saying if you want your son back, then send us your daughter. They say she’s an OGW—an overground worker. That she helps a Hizb Man transport his things.”
Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. Either way, she’s a goner.
—
I’ll help a Hizb Man transport his things.
And then he’ll kill me for being me.
Bad, uncovered woman.
Indian
Indian?
Whatever
So it goes.
NOTHING
I would like to write one of those sophisticated stories in which even though nothing much happens there’s lots to write about. That can’t be done in Kashmir. It’s not sophisticated, what happens here. There’s too much blood for good literature.
Q 1: Why is it not sophisticated?
Q 2: What is the acceptable amount of blood for good literature?
THE LAST ENTRY in the notebook was an army press release, pasted on to one of the pages:
PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU (DEFENSE WING) GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE, MINISTRY OF DEFENSE, SRINAGAR
GIRLS OF BANDIPORA LEFT FOR EXCURSION